Above Ones Weight

There is a natural order in wine.  Some are better than others.  Most wine producers work to this, so that the best fruit and greatest care goes into the top label.  Those not quite to style or without the best qualities go into a second, or even third label.  If it can’t make the grade at all, it is sold off, or just dumped. 

However some wines just don’t behave, and often a second wine can punch above its weight.  We see this in wine judging competitions, where a secondary label gets the gold medal, and the premium wine is rated lower.  These good-performing wines just get the balance right and can be truly delicious.  They can be so pleasing, though not necessarily the most complex, so they must get a good medal and be recognised for its quality and style.

One such wine did it for SWMBO and I recently.  It was the 2016 Pencarrow Martinborough Pinot Noir.  Of course its bigger sibling, the Palliser Estate wine is bigger, richer, more structured, more complex and more ageworthy.  But the sweet fruitiness, richness, perfect extraction and freshness made the Pencarrow just simply adorable and irresistible to drink.  So we drank it!